


Fallen Warden

by Toshi_Nama



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Complete, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 15:16:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18967843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toshi_Nama/pseuds/Toshi_Nama
Summary: Anything against the Blight.What does that mean?  What could that mean?  Unless the battle is won, there is no way to know what is needed...and even then, no way to know if the choices you made were the cause.What happens when the Warden dies in the broken wreckage of her Circle?  What happens when one woman is willing to take her place?The Blight was stopped.  Urthemiel vanquished.  Was it worth it?Anything against the Blight.  The Wardens would say yes.





	1. Not All Heroes Rise

(Kinloch Tower, Ferelden’s Circle of Magi) 

“What _are_ we doing?  Have you thought about it?”  One of my fellows looked uneasy – the other just shrugged.  He didn’t care.  None of this was how I thought it would be - how we were _promised_ it would be.  The Knight-Commander hadn’t fought, he’d fled.  So much for Templar duty.  My musings and unease were cut short.

“Wait – do you hear something?”

That was the only warning before it was time.  More violence.  More blood.  This time, magic didn’t just come from us.

**

The _pain!_ But she stopped when I took my hands off my staff, lying on the floor.  “Please, please don’t kill me.”

The other mage knelt – or fell, I couldn’t tell.  I kept going, the words boiling out.  “I know I have no right to ask for mercy, but I didn’t mean for this death and destruction.  We were just trying to free ourselves.  Uldred told us that the Circle would support Loghain and Loghain would help us be free of the Chantry.”

Would she believe?  I didn’t know.  I didn’t even know if I believed.  My intentions, I knew.  The others...no.  I had done this to be free.  I _would_ be free.  The rest started to come out.  The parts that _she_ would have no reason to understand, pet of the Knight-Commander that she had been.   _I should have expected this._ Who else would come back to the Tower?  Who else would try and ‘cleanse’ it?

“Don’t you remember what it was like living here?  The Templars watching…always watching.”  My throbbing voice bought no sympathy, even when it was actual pain.  It never had, but Denise had always been soft-hearted.  Soft-hearted enough to believe the idiot Jowan, but not enough for this.  I sighed.  All the doubts…but we had no choice.  None of us could have expected what would happen.  What _had_ happened.  “The magic was a means to an end.  It gave us…it gave me the power to fight for what I believed.”  She did nothing but watch silently from her knees.

Oh, Uldred.  He was my _mentor,_ strong right hand to the First Enchanter.  He was so much more.  When he said this was knowledge we needed against the abuses of the Templars – it was a way to fight back.  I believed him.  It was the power to avoid the bad ones, to punish those whose minds I couldn’t bend.  what had happened to him... _when_ had I failed to see?

Wynne, of course, had to interject.  “Fighting for what you believe in is commendable, but the ends do not always justify the means.”  Pompous bitch, always spouting self-righteous nonsense.  It helped, when the Knight-Commander himself was your paramour.

I snapped back.  “You don’t really believe that, do you, Wynne?  Change rarely comes peacefully.  Andraste waged war on the Imperium; she didn’t write them a strongly worded letter.  We thought someone always has to take the first step…force a change, no matter the cost.”  But the change wasn’t what I thought I was fighting  for.  The sharpness vanished as I spoke to Amell again.  “And now Uldred’s gone mad, and we are scattered, doomed to die at the hands of those who seek to right our wrongs…”

Amell stared ahead, silent.  Damn her for her silence!  The three with her looked around the Tower – I knew what they saw.  Abominations.  Blood magic.  Uldred had promised!  I’d worked so hard under his guidance.  Mages shouldn’t be punished for the gifts the Maker had given them.  It all made sense…until it didn’t.  I knew what was happening in the Harrowing Chamber, no matter how I pretended.  Uldred would have spotted my hesitation; what he’d become believed my lies about hunting the Templars that remained.  It was a chance to escape.  Gregoir.  He hadn’t caught the Knight-Commander.  And Gregoir would have the Tower Annulled.  I had to show my loyalty before I died, too.  But the doors to the Tower were barred and Wynne had seen us.  She knew what we’d done.   This time, she was standing over me – but with the blood scenting the air, the agony of my own body, I could see the truth of her, the spirit coiled around her own.  _Abomination, yet she casts judgement on me._

“Please,” I whispered.  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Amell, pet of Enchanter Irving and Gregoir both, had come back.  What did she know of family, of freedom?  Chantry orphan.  She’d been with the Templars until her powers showed, of course she’d side with them.

They didn’t answer.  The silence forced me to face the past days, to see what had happened from the eyes of someone who didn’t live it.  Silence...it was better than I expected.  _Better than I deserved._ How had everything gone so wrong?

“I just want a chance to atone.  I’ll do anything!  Just let me go…I’ll join you, join the Chantry.  Do good works, make up for everything I helped destroy.”  Anything.  Anything was better than death...better than become succeed.  The realization crushed something I didn’t want to admit.

The man…another Templar, I was sure, spoke in a light, bitter tenor.  “You know, they’ll never take you.  They’re very picky about who they let in.  Harlots, murderers, yes.  Maleficarum, oh no…”  The humor didn’t hide his rage.  I was doomed – but he looked down at Amell.  Everyone did.

I stared up those who followed Amell – so much for not seeking power, hm?  Wynne, the Templar who wasn’t, and a redheaded archer with the most luscious lips I’d seen.  The lips opened – her voice was just as delightful.  Grim humor came to me before her words registered.  At least if I was going to die, it would be with music and beauty in my ears.  “Your comments betray your ignorance, Alistair.  The Chantry accepts all, regardless of what they’ve done.”

But even she stopped after that.  Amell?  She was the one who would decide, it seemed.  And she hadn’t spoken.  I searched… “Denise?”

She coughed…and a trickle of brackish blood trickled out of her mouth.  I was the one who caught her, ignoring the blades – I was closest, already on the floor.

“Use magic and you die, Malificar.”

Why didn’t he see?  “If I don’t, she’s dead, Templar.”  What could he do to me that he didn’t already plan?  And here…she was dying.  _No._ She was my only hope now.  Me, dependent on the Templars’ pet, on the self-righteous bitch who’d escaped and left us here to die...

Amell sighed.  “No use.”  It must have been Ophen’s spell…it had burst inside her, and she’d held together…but not long enough.

“No!”  I hadn’t liked her, but no one deserved this.  Isn’t it why I left?  Using my blood was one thing, it was mine, but…not demons.  Not what happened upstairs.  “No, Denise, you can’t…”  Don’t leave me like this.  You’re my only way out.

A sigh.  “Too late.  Al…stair.  Help him.  Blight.”  He swore a denial, and her eyes rolled his way.  “Anything…gainst…Blight.  Warden.”

She coughed again, blood spilling down my arms.  Yet again, I felt the glimmer of power as a spirit vanished to the Fade.

Now what?


	2. Another's Skin

The three stared at each other, but it was Leliana who spoke.  “She wishes to atone?  Let her prove it.  She claims to know this Uldred – that could be useful, no?  And let her go first, so she cannot betray us.”

A chance to atone.  I grasped it before either the Templar or Wynne could snatch it from my fingers.  “I swear on my life and my powers, in the Maker’s sight.  I will atone.  I will do whatever it takes to stop the Blight.”   _ Denise, you were a nemesis in life, but I will not squander this.  You will see.  I will take your place. _

Healing energy poured in from the Abomination – I would save that knowledge.   _ Anything against the Blight.   _ Then I looked down.  “I cannot go like this.  Uldred will recognize me.  If you wish me dead, just kill me now, not that.  I must…I must be as her.”

The others left.  The redhead – oh, Maker, give me time to know her better – helped strip the body.  “My name is Leliana.  And yours?”

“Charnia.  But for this – please, I will have to not use that name.  Not here, not with Uldred, and the forces.”  Not with the Templars below.  There was a thought..I shoved it below for now, but it bubbled up.  There was only one way out.  I looked at Amell’s hair – close enough.  I peeled apart my braids and twined the waist-length strands up into the same high bun.  Leliana helped, her fingers light and deft.

“You have lovely hair.  And…the others will not, but I wish you luck.  Atonement is a priceless gift, not just to the world around you.”

Once I was changed and wearing Denise’s fancy armor and too-tight boots, we continued through stone halls that only now showed the blood and horror they’d always held.  The Templars couldn’t cover it up any longer, and neither could the First Enchanter.  All that was left behind was a pile of ash...all three bodies.  Once we’d faced Uldred, I could...

No.

I’d sworn.  Anything against the Blight.  The woman - the singer - she’d told me there were treaties.  To fight against the Blight meant I couldn’t burn down Kinloch and everything in it; someone had to survive to support the Wardens.  Gregoir had locked them in to find that solution.  Of course he had.  He had the strength of the Chantry, not the strength of convictions or desperation.  We pushed higher.  The Harrowing Chamber wasn’t far from us, though there was one last obstacle planted against Templars or the resistant mages I’d been told to hunt.

**

The demon and its lair.  Everyone was snared, even the abomination of Wynne, who should know better.  Perhaps it was the blood that insulated me, made everything the demon tried less real.  I had always known dream from reality, no matter how nightmarish that reality was.  But I would need them to escape, and they were also against the Blight.  I’d learned just enough.  The almost-Templar, Alistair, was also a Warden.  The Order fought the Blights.  That was all I knew, but it would be enough.

_ Anything against the Blight.   _ We found Cullen…I remembered.  He’d loved Amell, but when she left, I looked similar enough, was comfort enough.  The poor man was wrapped in the throes of torture and lyrium withdrawal – he would not recognize me from his feverish dreams.  But when he mentioned what happened ahead, when I saw Alistair nod…the only way to atone would be to escape this place with none the wiser.  And that meant the Abomination…

“You’re right, Cullen.  We can’t be sure.”

Wynne, horrified, attacked.   _ One down.   _ The man stared at her body, and then at me.

“She was an abomination, I don’t know what kind.  Couldn’t you feel the spirit?”  He stammered – but there was doubt.  That would do.  Cullen was strong enough, trusted enough.  There was also the advantage that what I said was true.

_ Anything against the Blight.   _ But that meant I had to survive to atone.  Uldred – the thing in his body couldn’t recognize me, couldn’t see through the deception.  I hadn’t thought to strip poor Niall’s body, which left us only one choice.  And ‘sadly,’ the First Enchanter did not survive.  There had been only one man in this room I’d cared for, and he had already been lost.  Killing Uldred’s body was a mercy.

There was enough blood, enough pain in the room.  I ignored my distaste, the feeling of wearing someone else’s skin.   _ Forbidden.   _ Uldred had told me the Maker would understand - I believed him until it was almost too late.  If it hadn’t been for Amell, for the singer…   _ Atonement. _  But now, to take Amell’s place...when Cullen came up, he saw Denise Amell, not Charnia Swensea.  Oh, how I missed the sea, changeable, welcoming, and unforgiving. I had enough injuries from the abomination Uldred had turned into – none of the Templars, even Knight-Monster Gregoir himself, saw anything but Denise, pet of the Circle until the First Enchanter used her against the Templars and she was rescued by the Wardens.  I spoke the words he would expect Denise to say – that the children should be fine, that the Tower was clear of blood magic. And it would be, once I left. I was the only one who survived.  I knew  _ everyone  _ Uldred had taught.

_ Anything against the Blight.   _ No one would recognize the pile of ashes where Denise Amell had fallen and given me the one chance to atone, as anything but yet another death within the broken Circle.

**

Alistair glared at me.  “And what now?”

“I swore on my life and powers that I would atone.  That I would take up her task. So I need to become a Warden.”

“We can’t!  I can’t do the Joining!”  Oooh, he hated admitting that.  It managed to pass his attempts at humor and his whining.

I raised an eyebrow.  “You did with her. Where?”

He swore.  “Ostagar. Which is overrun.  There was a battle, if you didn’t know.  It didn’t go well thanks to Loghain’s treachery.”

Darkspawn.  An easy excuse to avoid it - but I would not take the easy path, not any longer.  “Then we find our way back to Ostagar, and see if we can recover what’s left.  Perhaps there will be a way for me to become a Warden there.” I would atone. And if that required becoming a Warden, then that’s what I would do.

I wouldn’t give up my freedom.  Not when I tasted real air for the first time in a decade.  Not when my legs could take real strides again.   _ Not when I could atone.   _

**

The Qunari looked at me.  Again.  “What?”  I should be grateful for the monster’s silent obedience, but his looks - was he judging me, too?  What did  _ he  _ know of cages?

“You are not the Warden who freed me.”

I shouldn’t be surprised.  “No, I’m not.  She died in the Tower.  I took her name and her place.”

That drew an odd look from the violet-eyed giant.  “I had not thought any would understand their role.  To find that here, and in a bas-saarebas…”

“A what?”  I tensed.

“A mage not leashed and protected by the Qun.”  He shook his head.  “No. I will not explain it to you, either.”

“Then what will you do?”

He shrugged, his grey skin impassive.  “Will you aid me in learning of the Blight?”

He had to be joking.  He  _ had _ to be joking.  He was a mobile siege engine, and was asking if I would _ let _ him learn of the Blight?  I would toss him at the Darkspawn if I could pick him up.  “Yes.”

“Then I will follow you.”  As if to himself.  “A mage who understands her role.”  He went back to watching the darkness, the snarling mabari at his side.

**

We’d found what Alistair claimed was the Joining Chalice…and explained the little he knew.  Well, there were enough Darkspawn here, easy to get the blood.  And then mix it with…what?  Archdemon blood and lyrium, and a spell.  What spell?  Of course he didn’t know the spell.  I was beginning to agree with Morrigan: Alistair was useful, but an idiot and far too idealistic.  Then again, he’d been a Templar.  He could afford to be both.

“Hand me the cup.”  I looked at it – there was dried residue.  Maybe… “Alistair, Leliana – can you please…scout?  For a moment, or until we call.”

Leliana pulled him away.  Good.  Morrigan gave me a sideways smile.  “And now?”

I shrugged.  “I know magic he doesn’t.”  I laughed at her snort, if uneasily.  “I know, not hard.  But it’s magic most Circle mages don’t.  I assume that you do, too.  ‘Forbidden’ is easy for the Chantry to say.  If we work together, we may be able to recreate the ritual, or at least enough of the spell to make it work.”

Golden eyes studied me.  She hadn’t said anything when I came back from the Circle instead of Denise beyond a greeting.  “Why does this matter so much to you?  You have your freedom.”

I did.  But I knew why, and answered her honest-seeming curiosity.  “I made an oath on my powers.  I would atone for supporting Uldred.  She said anything against the Blight – and that means I need to try.”

Her odd, catlike eyes gazed at me with something approaching respect.  “Very well.  Here is what I have heard…”

**

It took blood of my own to force the secrets from the blood dried into the chalice.  With the fresh Darkspawn blood, and a generous shot of lyrium, the brackish liquid loosened and merged.  Was it right?  We’d find out when I tried it.  I examined the amount – sadly, not enough to make a Warden of either Leliana or Morrigan, too.  “Denise, this is in your name.”   _ Maker, if you care for your gifted children, give me strength to fight the consequences of human folly and your anger. _

I drank.

Poison and rage filled my mind, and my body convulsed.

It worked.  I could tell when I woke up – could feel the foreign blood coursing through me, changing me into something else.  Something  _ more _ .  I’d sworn to take Amell’s place, but this was…more.  Somehow, I’d started following her path, was  _ becoming  _ Denise Amell.   _ Anything against the Blight.   _ I had already shed the Tower and its broken Circle.  Now I had to shed Charnia and her fears, and her scruples.

**


	3. Interlude

Using the blood grew easier.  The assassin – he promised to be useful, and I could create a blood chain if necessary.  He would not succeed.   _ ‘The descriptions did you no justice.’   _ I snorted.  Of course they didn’t, because they were descriptions of the Denise Amell who left the Circle in Duncan’s wake, not the one who left behind a pile of ashes and two dead mentors.   _ Oh, Uldred.  Where did you go so wrong?   _ He hadn’t been the same since Ostagar.  Now, neither was I.

The Darkspawn whispered in my dreams.   _ Anything against the Blight.   _ Whispers of dark hunger were better when they weren’t from demons and either were better than death.  What could the Archdemon do to me that the Templars hadn’t already threatened?  At least I was  _ encouraged  _ to kill Darkspawn.  I would be revered for killing the Archdemon.

**

_ (Kinloch Hold) _

“What do you mean, you can’t find her!”  The shout echoed through the empty stone halls.  The few apprentices who had been saved cowered.  The Enchanters, too busy trying to deal with the tears in the Veil and the corresponding demons, simply ignored what was not directed at them.

Ser Dent shook his head disbelievingly.  “I cannot follow her, Knight-Commander.”

Dark eyes glared past his grey-streaked beard.  “You have her phylactery, do you not?  Meditate.  You are not incapable, Dent…or do you not want to find Amell?”  He kept going over his memories, and was not satisfied.  “I need her brought back.  She will answer to me.”

The Templar tried, again, to concentrate.  Nothing.  “It’s like she’s dead – the phylactery does not respond.”  He was frantic.  “Knight-Commander, I do not understand!”

Gregoir snatched it from his Templar.  “Let me try.”  Nothing.  A vast emptiness where surety and direction should be, in the back of his mind.  It didn’t even glow correctly.  He checked the bottom: Amell’s mark, the same one that had been drawn onto her shoulder.  He remembered it – he’d done that one himself.  To lose such a promising Templar, and to magery at that…but she’d stayed obedient and faithful until Irving finally corrupted her.  He tossed the phylactery – Dent barely kept it from crashing on the floor.  “Useless.  Perhaps it is becoming a Warden, or some trick of theirs.  Find her the old-fashioned way.  The Wardens needed an army…and had treaties.  We saw the one for the Circle.”

Ser Dent bowed and hurried out.  Gregoir returned to his pacing.   _ Something  _ was different.

**


	4. Anything...

(The Forest)

Zathrian.  I didn’t care he was an elf and only envied his natural freedom from the Chantry and their Circles.  I could sense the coils of magic around him…and recognized the scents of them.  He had done  _ something  _ that the Chantry would call forbidden, and my beloved Uldred had called innovative.  What, I didn’t know.   _ Uldred, I miss you more every day.   _ If it hadn’t been for Morrigan and Leliana, I might have failed at my oath as I had failed him.  I should have seen, should have been Harrowed, strong enough to protect him from the demon he’d brought back from Ostagar.  He’d seen me Harrowed just before he made his move – and promised me all of our phylacteries were destroyed.  Had he kept that promise?  It didn’t matter.  I was Denise Amell, a Denise freed of her phylactery because it was filled with the wrong woman’s blood.

I didn’t care what Zathrian had done.  He promised the elves’ support, if I could rid them of a wolf.  Easy – oh, a wolf abomination.  It would be harder, then, but a pleasure.  I would never forgive the spirits for what they’d done to Uldred and therefore to all of us.

Using the blood grew easier still as we moved through the forest.  Alistair wanted nothing to do with it or me.  Fine.  Leliana was delight enough…she and Morrigan stayed at my side.  The Crow came as well.  There was blood and pain aplenty without my needing to add to it.  The rage and hunger from the beasts – I turned it back against them, boiled them from within using its power, drained them dry.  The disgust, the unease – it was against the Blight.  I drew on the changes, on the Amell I was trying to be, and turned from those feelings.  So long as it was against the Blight, it was fine.

I didn’t care about the landscape around us, though I loved Leliana’s voice as she spoke of it or sung snatches of songs I’d never heard.  There were trees.  There were rocks.  There were...little animals, sparks of life that were too skittish to be useful and too timid to be threats.  I was a child of the sea, not whatever  _ this  _ place was.  Kill the abomination, give the heart to a man who had the power of Uldred without a demon’s corruption, and leave.  Simple.

**

_ Anything against the Blight.   _ The wolf was dead, along with the spirit’s sweet, too-reasonable words.  Spirits had destroyed Uldred, they would not destroy me.  I had an oath to keep.

The Dalish were going to war.  Two treaties drawn tight around those who’d sworn them.  There was only one to go.  A second set of allies...no, a fourth, might be available if Alistair was right in his meanderings about Redcliffe.  It wouldn’t hurt to check.  The more soldiers the better, against these monsters.

The more monsters, the better – so long as they could be controlled.

I remembered my vow.

**

_ The light wavered, dancing along the waves.  Digging for breakfast with my toes, where oysters left hints of their presence.  ‘Charnia, love!  Don’t go so far out!’  But they taste better when it’s a challenge, Mother.  And the waves, the sea...it was worth the long trudge past the rocks. _

Then the waves started listening.

_ ‘Charnia, lovey, should we go fish today?  Which direction?’  ‘Sweets, the sea feels uneasy.  Sing to her, please?  My lad wants me home safe.’  ‘Charnia, why do you tell them these things?  You’re scaring your brothers.’ _

It was one of them, she was sure, who whispered at the Chantry.

_ ‘Just a test, Mother.  They say it’s just questions.’  The village watched as the Templar took her too-trusting hand.  And then locked her away, as far from the seas as they could put her.  It wasn’t until Uldred taught her to listen to the water of life that she heard the sea in her dreams again. _

Charnia – no, I’d learned to answer to Denise now – looked north once, then turned to follow the mountains, away from the sea.  I knew better – I was never far from the sounds of life, ragged, dancing, flowing around and within.   _ When this is done, I’ll go back to the sea.  Somewhere, somehow. _

**

“Another nightmare?”  Her voice was music as she pressed closer.

I shook my head.  “It will be fine.”  If I had known, would I have sought out the ritual?  I needed to.  As a fellow Warden, Alistair wouldn’t act against me – he couldn’t, as bound by his honor as Denise Amell had been bound by her faith.  I was bound, but not by faith, honor, or anything else so trivially rigid.  My chains were wrapped tight by my word and now by my blood. 

It wouldn’t be fine, and I couldn’t lie to her.  “When I’d sworn my life and powers to this, I hadn’t meant…hadn’t realized.”  I sighed as she held me, skin against skin, our hearts pulsing in time. 

“You will atone, my love.  And then, we’ll find a way for you to be free, after the Blight.”  I felt her smile against my lips, that delightfully mischievous lift to her even in the most serious moments.  “We shall vanish into stories and legends, the Warden and her faithful lover.”

Vanishing – that sounded pleasant.  More than pleasant.  Besides, the Templars would never find ‘Denise,’ even with the phylactery.  “Together, love.”

**

(Redcliffe)

The undead of Redcliffe were finally ash along with the villagers they’d fed on – and Alistair ‘just happened’ to be the King’s bastard brother.  Convenient, that.  Oh, and the only person who could back him up was currently in the castle, in a coma.  At least the abomination was dead and Jowan as well.  He recognized me – but he had been an idiot, a tool Uldred had used to keep his true students from being seen.  So desperate he’d actually started asking for help to find books on blood magic ‘so he could recognize it,’ it had been child’s play for him to be discovered.  The weak and cowardly could not survive in the Circle.  They just took others down with them, like he almost took down Amell.

After so long wearing her name, I almost felt pity for her.  She’d been raised by the Chantry, raised to be a mage-hunter, then had that shattered when the Maker’s gift of magic showed itself.  But she’d learned as best she could.  She fell prey to an idiot blood mage?  Soft-hearted.  Perhaps she knew I would do better against the Blight.  She’d looked like she was going to ask me to join, as she had Sister Leliana, and as I did the Assassin.

Oh, Leliana.  The best of Orlais and Ferelden, and a magic all your own.  I could lose myself in you, if you weren’t as dedicated as I to stopping the Blight.  I wouldn’t fight.  Desire demons have nothing against your mix of worldly innocence, those lips, those eyes, the way your breath tickles my ear as you whisper delightful, wicked things at night.  The skin I wear, that no longer feels so foreign, is worth it for you.  And then, once the Blight is gone…

Enough.  I don’t have time for those thoughts, not when I can hear Urthemiel through the blood we now share.  At least I know my own, intimately, in a way few do.  Thank you, Uldred.

**

I boiled as Leliana told me her history.  Betrayed by her mentor, abandoned, tortured.  Denise rose up inside,  _ betrayed as I was betrayed by Irving.  Only worse.   _ Lover and mentor, and I had never heard that about Irving and Denise.

Well, we needed to go to Denerim anyway.  As good an excuse as I could invent.  Leliana, you should be free of your past, as I was forced to abandon mine.

**

(Denerim)

The bitch is dead, as Irving is dead, as my beloved Uldred is dead.  And now my love is lost and alone after I helped kill the woman who had been her mentor.  Before she had betrayed Leliana to torture and suffering.  There is a reason we understood each other.  No.  She was not alone.   _ Never alone.   _

“Leliana, I am still here.”  I almost reached out with the pain in the room, the blood spilling into the carpets…but I managed to stop.   _ How long until I don’t?   _ No, I would.  Anything against the Blight does not mean anything at all.  I would  _ never  _ use blood against her.   _ Not you, my love...the only one who understands, who sings of places I have never been, who can see a future beyond my vow.   _ Down that path lies madness, not atonement.  Instead I let her take the lead and take us back out of the city.  Morrigan was the one who inspected the bodies, Sten watching warily.

“Be what you wish, love.”  I smiled at her in camp, as we lay curled up under my blanket.  The tears had come and gone.  What remained was doubt as Leliana fought between Chantry and freedom.  What could the Chantry hold?  There, she was a caged bird.  She deserved to fly,  _ longed  _ for it.  It was that Marjolene who was the problem, not stretching her wings.   _ Oh, my love.   _ “You enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

She smiled – somehow, my words managed as well as any spell.  Better, for it was truth of the heart, not the piercing prison of the mind.

**


	5. Breaking a King

Finally I gave in to Alistair’s pressing to travel to Soldier’s Peak, following some merchant with fantasies of becoming someone important.  Fool, especially when I could smell the fear.  Even moreso, I could almost  _ hear  _ the spirits who had whispered in his dreams.  ‘Just found it.’  But we had half an army, and Alistair was probably right.  We –  _ I –  _ needed to know more about the Wardens.  An ancient keep almost razed to the ground just as the Wardens were exiled sounded like the place to learn it.

Maybe  _ then  _ Alistair would realize the Wardens were no Heroes of the Light or whatever noble nonsense he’d made up in his head.  Even the foolishly ‘pure’ Denise had understood that.   _ Anything against the Blight.   _ The fool once-Templar still didn’t admit that the Joining itself was blood magic.  The foundation of the Order that  _ he  _ wanted to be Noble Saviors started with the very same ‘forbidden’ knowledge that he’d almost used to justify my murder.  Though my murder would have been justified.

What a fool I’d been.

Had I?  Uldred had risked everything, but it was to stop the Circle, to find freedom.  But  _ how  _ he’d done it…I’d heard the people talk.  All he’d done was ensure the Circle remained intact, make people fear us, hate us.  There had to be a better way, a way to still free mages.  Did I care any longer?  I was free of them, and no one could find me.  It was no longer my concern.

Such were the thoughts that, along with Leliana, filled the time through ice-crusted caverns accompanied by Alistair, Morrigan and that peddler.  Drier, he said his name was?  He didn’t matter, other than as a means to the Keep and more Warden secrets.

The broken stones of the Keep were infested by ghosts of the battle, fighting long after their bodies had rotted away.  That damned peddler would have run if I hadn’t smothered his panic, soothing him into insensibility.  All he needed to do was follow and answer questions.  Oh, and stay alive at least until then.  I freed his mind enough that he could run to a safe distance, should more spirits attack – that was good enough.

Alistair didn’t notice…and Morrigan, outside a sharp look, had no reaction.   _ She  _ understood.  It was a means to an end, and it’s not like I was changing his thoughts, just…making sure he did what he wanted to.  And more than that, ensuring I had what I needed to plumb the Wardens’ history.

My ‘fellow Warden’ and Dryhead strained to open the age-petrified doors of the Keep.  “I would suggest keeping things more subtle.  He is an idiot, but a clever one.”  Her voice was low.  “And he is not the only one who may not understand.”

I could feel my breath seize as I followed her gaze.  Even though her sunset hair was hidden by her helm, I couldn’t but recognize her from the way she stood, how she tilted her head, the faint lilt that danced on the breeze.   _ Would  _ she abandon me?  No.  No, she wouldn’t.   _ Couldn’t.   _ She had to understand, she’d heard the same words from Amell’s bloody lips.  But…  “You may be right.  Thank you, Morrigan.”  It wasn’t worth the risk.

She gave me a smile.  “Of course, sister.”

With that we followed behind Alistair into the newly-opened Keep.  After the tombs in the Brecilian Forest, it was easy enough to ignore the stench of neglected centuries.  Plus the feel of spirits whispering against my mind…there would be plenty to keep us busy.

**

The demon that possessed Sophia, I recognized it.  Another one of Pride.  The same demon that corrupted my mentor.   _ No, I would not fall under its sway.   _ But then it promised knowledge.  Knowledge I might need against the Blight.  Desire warred against duty.

Duty won.

She wanted me to deal with something, or someone further in?  Fine.  And then I would pull every bit of knowledge out of the creature before destroying it.  ‘Freedom’ of a sort, and Pride was the last to realize others could also lie.  I snorted, softly enough Alistair didn’t hear.  It would be one of the few things he actually approved of.  At least he hadn’t been strong enough willed to stop me.  Nobility was well and good, but it wasn’t enough.

Would never be enough.

Sooner or later, Alistair would realize that fact or be broken by it.  I  _ would  _ stop the Blight,  _ whatever  _ it took.  Whoever had to fall.  Then I would be free, my oath kept.  I would have atoned.

I would be free, my Leliana and I.   _ ‘Vanished into the mists of legend and story…’ _

**

I shivered…and even Morrigan was tense.  The shreds of the Fade and Veil twined together here, still flayed from the battle that had happened.   _ This  _ was an actual danger.  This was the closest I’d felt to terror since I realized Uldred and his demon had doomed us all.  If I was going to use the Keep, this had to be dealt with.  Well, the revenant said it could.

Beyond the once-Barriered door, I led the way through more undead and over to a tower.  As we walked in, Alistair joined our ‘guide’ Derden in going green and finding a corner.  Even Leliana paled.  Morrigan and I were the ones who looked around, who pawed through the discarded journals, who poked into the cages, looked at the tables.

“A laboratory?”

She nodded back, equally composed and academic.  “Tis what it seems.  And a dark study.  Many of these aren’t or  _ weren’t  _ human.  Or dwarven, even elven.  Look at the twisting, here on this femur…”

It hummed to me as I lifted it.  “Darkspawn.”  I couldn’t destroy this knowledge.   _ This  _ was the treasure of the Keep.  The scrolls and books were ready to decay and crumble.  Together, we tossed magic at them.  It would protect what was left from curious eyes and time’s ravages.  “I’ll come back.”  A promise to Denise, and to myself.  With what I could learn here, perhaps I could break free of the Taint I’d let into my blood.   _ After the Blight. _

The potion on the table?  The moldering text beside theorized it should increase power.  It was an easy decision, once I’d probed for poison.  It had more blood, more Taint, but would only bring death to a non-Warden, if I read the spell correctly.  It stabbed through my body, a thousand pinpricks along every nerve, but I could feel its changes and set my mind to remember them.  “What else will we find here?”

Morrigan’s eyes had also lit with her thirst for knowledge.  “Shall we find out?  There should not be much left to explore.”

We found Avernus, a mage ancient beyond belief even for a normal human.  ‘Thirty years,’ Alistair had told me –  _ after  _ I’d let myself become Tainted.  I would not stop at thirty years,  _ would  _ have what Avernus had discovered if I could not find a way to rid myself of the powerful darkness.  Once I had stopped the Blight, I will have atoned.  I would be  _ free. _

We were here to kill him, but  _ this  _ was knowledge far beyond what the Revenant could provide.  Avernus was frail, but that had little relation to power.  The greater fact was how much he knew of the Taint.  “Of course we’ll help you seal the Veil.”  Alistair and Leliana stared in relief.  I raised my eyebrow at Leliana.  “What, did you believe I was sincere when I said I’d work with a demon?”

Leliana’s laugh rang out as she relaxed.  She had – and with good reason.  But now, she could pretend I wouldn’t.  Oh, Leliana...I wouldn’t have actually let it free.  No, not Pride, not a demon to corrupt the promising.

“Huh.  That’s a relief.”  Alistair’s response was more guarded.  He was learning.  Time would tell if that was good or bad.

“Plus, Avernus was the mage there.  He’d have a better idea what mistakes he made, and therefore fix it.”  I  _ would  _ hammer in the importance of pragmatism.  It was our only chance.  The whisper in the back of my mind said more…it was  _ his  _ only chance.  I could not let anyone know I was anything but Denise Amell.

_ Red hair and thick lips that danced across my body.   _ Well.  I couldn’t let anyone remember that was a threat.

**

Avernus submitted to my judgement.  He’d learned humility, then, after what had happened.  Or he didn’t trust to the impetuous, stupid nobility of our ‘fellow’ Warden Alistair.  Either that, or he was just too tired.  “Keep working.  Learn  _ everything  _ you can.”  I held his eyes.  “You can’t leave, but tell me what you need, and  _ I  _ will provide it.”  He would know to whom he was bound.

He understood.  He’d also felt my hold on the peddler.  “Everything?”

_ “Anything _ against the Blight.  You’re a Warden.”

His eyes lit up.  “Of course, Warden-Commander.”  The same title Sophia had once held.

_ No.  I was not Sophia.  She’d grown arrogant, used her powers against more than the Blight.   _ That, I would not do.

Would I?

I looked away to face the remarkably grateful, and forgetful, peddler gabbling about bringing his family out here.  “Sure, that would be useful.  The outbuildings are yours, so long as you remember who you serve here.”  He would remember, of that I was sure.  A flicker of fear appeared, before it was buried under more words, more servile appreciation.  Then again, what other choice did he have?

**

“We need to talk, Charnia.  Privately.”  Leliana left my side at the set tone he used.  Oh, the boy-king was developing a spine?  Why did it have to be  _ now?   _

I sighed at Alistair.  “I’m exhausted.  What is it?  And just call me Denise.  It’s easier that way.”

His face set into lines of childish refusal.  “You aren’t, no matter the game you play or words you mouth.”

Fool.  He was a fool to push, and I would  _ not _ hear my name on a Templar’s lips.  He regretted leaving, now?  He would have been dead in Kinloch if not for me.  I hammered him with words.  “Denise entered the Tower.  Denise left – we all agreed, remember?”  More Leliana had badgered him into it, and he was still shocked enough about what happened to Wynne and his journey through the Fade to agree.  He’d clearly regretted it for a while.  “Besides, you wouldn’t betray a fellow Warden to her death, would you?”

He went white.   _ Anything against the Blight.   _ That included using the ghosts of Loghain’s treachery and tie them to the guilt  _ he  _ had to feel about Denise’s death.  “You bitch.  No, I wouldn’t.”

“Anything against the Blight, Alistair.  Denise understood.  You need to, too.”  I sighed, too tired for this, but he was actually listening for a change.  “Look, Avernus has knowledge.  Centuries of knowledge and tinkering with the Blight and the Taint in our blood.  Are you really willing to throw that all away for something that happened so long ago?  It was a mistake.”

“People died!”

“So?  Have you killed no one?”  He sputtered.  “Besides, he was led by Sophia, a Warden who was also a Ferelden noble making a play for the throne.  She gave the orders.  The wrong ones.  His study of the Taint is valuable.  His idiotic summoning of demons so she could rule was the failure.  He just needed a Commander who understood the difference.”  I let my voice grow hard, though I kept my hands in view so he didn’t blame blood magic for his sudden onslaught of sense.  “Anything against the Blight, Alistair.  That’s what we do, because the Blight doesn’t care who rules or who dies.”

He hurled the words at me again.  “You bitch.”  I didn’t care about the anger.  It wasn’t at me, it was at the shattering of his foolish, childish certainty about ‘good’ and ‘evil.’

“But it works, Alistair.  And it’s the best chance to stop the Blight.”

**

Alistair hadn’t spoken since I reminded him of his precious mission - the one I apparently took to heart more than he did.  Not as we passed back through the caverns glowing sapphire and gold against the torches, not even as we stopped at an inn.  He marched by Sten of all people.  The giant gave Alistair one brief look of possibly surprise, then grunted and continued eating the ground, looking for the next battle.

“I think I broke him,” I murmured into a silk-covered ear.  The wearer giggled lightly, though she watched the ‘senior’ Warden across the fire.  Tonight it was...some kind of pie that had survived being carried this far.  Something no one had to interact with each other to eat.

It gave us the privacy of flickering shadows.

Finally, Leliana’s lilting, beautiful voice answered.  “I think you may have.  He hasn’t glanced over once.”

I slid my lips from ear down the side of her throat, glancing through my lashes across again.  The assassin was watching appreciatively - his eyes gleamed as they met mine.  Alistair wasn’t even blushing furiously.  “Either that or he’s thinking.”

Her hand stopped my explorations; for the time being, at least.  “Charnia, my love…”

I blinked.  Only from  _ her  _ could I tolerate that name.  “Leliana?”  Two circumstances brought it to her lips.  One of those, she had halted.  The other was when we needed to talk about serious matters.  “Leliana, what is it?”

“You.  You have...I worry, Charnia.  You swore to the Wardens, yes, but I do not think Denise meant for you to abandon all gentleness.  There is still a place for compassion, yes?”

The bard turned in my arms to cup my face in her hands.  I gave her what I gave no one else; raw honesty.  “I don’t know.  Not in the big things.  We don’t have time for dithering or pity.  The Blight will swallow us whole, and I can’t let that happen.”  No, I choked down the rest.  “Not here.  Not to you or to my vow.  I have nothing.  I gave up  _ everything;  _ first when I joined Uldred, and then when I gave that up as well.  I don’t even have a  _ name,  _ Leliana!”

Her voice was calm.  “I dreamed, of darkness overpowering all.  The bushes around Lothering as black and charred as the lifeless town.  But there was one thing that lived.  A white rose.  The Maker would not abandon us.”

I blinked.  “When was this dream?”

Now a flush showed against her porcelain skin, bringing out a dusting of freckles.  “In Lothering.  I told Denise - and Alistair.  I argued to let me join them, that the Maker put me in their path for a reason.  I thought it was to help Denise.  Now…” her eyes blazed with certainty, “I am sure.  It was not for Denise. She had gentleness and mercy already.  It was for you, Charnia.  The vision, what you have suffered - that Lothering was gone and all hope believed lost.”

“I can’t be soft, Leliana.”

“That is fine,” her voice stayed sure.  A smile brushed my lips.  “I will be that compassion for you.  The gentleness you need to blossom.”

A snort startled me, and I glanced past the vision of my lover to see bitter hazel eyes.

So.  The man-child wasn’t broken after all.

He mattered less than the woman in front of me.  Let him watch.  Let him  _ want.   _ Maybe he would learn.  “I hope so,” I murmured.

_ “She’ll be the death of you, too.” _

I ignored Alistair.  No.  There was no reason, and I was neither cruel nor evil.

**


	6. Interlude 2

“What is this?”  

I jerked away from her touch, memory searing against my flesh.  We’d shared a tent so long without her noticing - foolish.  Oh, Leliana, I was a fool for you; at least I wanted to be.  I couldn’t afford to be foolish.  The pain in those robins’ egg eyes…

“What the Chantry did to us.”  My pain twisted the words into her.  “It wasn’t all sweetness and the Chant.  The Templars oversee a ritual on every child they bring in or their parents abandon.  They draw blood and bind it, living, to our souls.  They mark the phylacteries and then to be sure, brand the mark into our flesh.  Our first taste of lyrium and the Chantry is blood magic.”

She recoiled.  So she should.  “No!  No, the Chantry would never…”

“The Chantry  _ does.   _ Look at it.”  I held myself still as she traced the old, rucked lines.  They blurred, some.  I’d struggled, screamed.  Most children sat in shock.  “The Wardens have permission to do anything against the Blight.  The Chantry kept it in shadows and lies.”

She was quiet.  “Perhaps we will find the truth, when we find Her ashes.”

That’s when I realized.  “Cut it off.”

“What?”

My voice rose.  “Cut it  _ off!   _ I don’t want the Chantry’s brand - I’m not livestock to be owned!”  It was the last remnant of Charnia on my skin, of the blood mage hated and caged.  Tears fell, the first since I’d left.  No.   _ No,  _ I couldn’t be her any longer.  She was weak.  She failed.  She  _ died  _ in the Tower at Kinloch.  “Please,” I begged in a shamed whisper.

Flesh burned one more time.  I bit my lip until it bled, but it was done.  A quick healing spell and the blood stopped.  The palm-sized remnant of Charnia, skin and blood, I threw into the fire.

Free except for the whispers in my blood.  There was nothing left of Charnia but memory - and Denise, I could abandon as soon as I kept my oath to her.


	7. The Nature of a Monster

(Orzammar)

_ Anything against the Blight.   _ Who cares which of these dwarves rules?  Each is as bad as the other.  Deep Roads, or this arena they used to kill each other off before the Darkspawn could?  The arena is closer.  Why bother with the weak who cannot follow where their loyalty demands – I will prove my own strength, the strength of the Wardens.

Criminal scum…smugglers, I remembered the branded faces, talking to Gregoir.  The Templars were the prime customers?  Let them rot without their drug.  This Carta would fall as easily as those in the Proving arena had.  But I could see the greed and lust for power in Bhelen’s face, a ‘prince’ as faithless as…as I had been.  Harrowmont was no better – but was older, tired, and already owed me.   _ Why go after those who were criminals for their birth?  Isn’t that what we mages went through?   _ No.  The Carta stretched to the surface – that I was familiar with.  And that merchant in the Commons – they could leave Orzammar, there was nothing to keep them trapped.  Those that stayed,  _ chose.   _ That made all the difference.  And I was no longer Charnia, I was Denise Amell.  She would go for wisdom over power.  So long as I got my army, I couldn’t afford to care.   _ Anything against the Blight.   _ Denise, I remember.

No.  It was not  _ Denise  _ I was trying to live up to.   _ Leliana, I hope you’re happy.   _ Her smile glowed against the embers left of my heart.  Only for her did they light.  Maybe soon, once the Blight was gone...maybe  _ then  _ I could be the woman she loved.   _ Vanished into myth and story.   _

**

Branka was insane.  Evidence of that had been left in the putrid passage behind me, before all the traps and death.  But…but.  She could create golems!  They had been monsters to fight through to get to the Anvil and Cairdin, and that was with only centuries-old instructions to guide them.

We were fighting monsters.

Cairdin’s description was terrible – but there had been volunteers.  They had understood.  And after that, criminals.  He saw it as a horrific act, but it wasn’t.  For Orzammar, how was that different than the Legion?  It was a chance to atone…or to force atonement.  I understood that.  Besides, scruples were not worth more than humanity.

_ Anything against the Blight.   _ “I came to find a Paragon, and crown a King.”  I flicked a glance at Zevran.  If Branka needed to be dealt with later, we could manage.  There were other talented smiths, once she got things going.  We needed an army.  Golems  _ were  _ an army.   _ They  _ couldn’t be turned into broodmothers.  

It was a mercy, really.

**


	8. The Death of Faith

(The Mountains)

We looked up the path to Haven, and I glanced around at the others..  Alistair gave me a sour look as our eyes met.  “No.  I’ll go back to Redcliffe and keep an eye on Arl Eamon.”  There was a razor’s edge of bitterness and possibly even humor in his voice.  “Someone needs to make sure Redcliffe’s soldiers are ready when you manage whatever miraculous thing you get up to, up there.  The ones that are left.”  He took Amell’s Mabari, Zevran…even Oghren, the drunken scum.  That dwarf personified ‘anything against the Blight.’  So long as he took a bunch of Darkspawn with him, I wouldn’t need to put a knife in his back.

I gave a shrug.  “There’s no need for us to stay together, not now.”  I did still give him an assessing look.  “You’re not planning on taking over Redcliffe and staging a counter-coup, are you?”  Leliana’s eyes widened in shock before she gave the man an equally measuring glance.  What, she hadn’t thought of that, after all her comments on how romantic it was to find a long-hidden heir?

“No.”  His eyes narrowed.  “You drove in the lesson of Sophia clearly enough.  Wardens who seize power through war don’t do too well.  Besides, he’s  _ family.” _

So he’d thought of it.  Interesting.  The naïve little boy  _ had  _ been thinking.  Dangerous, unless he came to the right conclusions.

Either way, I couldn’t stop him, not when he made it so public.  “Sten, Morrigan, Lel…let’s go.  Maybe there will be an inn or something.”  Haven was far enough from the war and the Blight that perhaps news hadn’t spread.  Besides, given what we’d seen of ‘Weylon,’ the cultist masquerading as Brother Genitivi’s apprentice had controlled the secret well.  No, Loghain’s men would not be there.

**

There was a guard at the top of the path – I could make out the village, but no one else was close enough for conversation.  He was…uninterested in answering anything.  No Brother, no Ashes…nothing. 

“They are hiding something.”  Morrigan and I shared a smile.  “’Tis obvious, is it not?”

Yes, they were.  And were so terrible at it, I had to suspect some sort of trap.  Fools.  The first ‘trap’ had failed, though they couldn’t know that.  I tried to look ahead and judge what there was beyond the strange-smelling guard.  Trees.  Snow.  Rock.  A handful of wooden buildings, but nothing large.

Suddenly Sten spoke up.  “Interesting strategy.”  Disgust almost dripped from his voice.  “Do you intend to keep going north until it becomes south and attack the archdemon from the rear?”

I was shocked.   _ Sten  _ of all people was issuing a challenge?  He hadn’t said two dozen words since he’d accepted me as Denise.  “This is necessary.”  I snapped the words back at him.  There was a civil war on top of the Blight, or had he somehow missed that fact?  I couldn’t abandon an entire army just because I had to go somewhere out of the way.

He ranted, as much as he could.  His expression did not change, but I could hear his frustration and rage.  “I will not simply follow in your shadow as you run from battle.”

_ I haven’t run yet.  I remember my vow.  _  But unlike him, I could also think in circles for that was what we needed against a Regent mad with power and paranoia.  I tore the skin of my calf against a convenient bit of metal on the other boot, felt the power rising.  I didn’t have time to argue with a wall, whether or not it could walk and swing a sword.  “Get back in line.”  How much power, to overcome blind obedience and linear thinking?

It was enough.  The rage faded, muffled by his own heartbeat as it matched mine.  He stepped back, silent.

We wandered into one of the cottages that called me, one that glowed its own twisted light in the Fade.   _ Blood.   _ An altar, with the water of life dripping from its sides.  Leliana was horrified, but all I could think was how  _ inefficient  _ it was.  It was messy, a gory shout that was completely unnecessary for the power.  Sten just stood behind us, silent and still as a blank slate.

“Perhaps this is what they hid?”  Morrigan answered her own question.  “Nonsense, it is not enough.  Come, let us plumb the other secrets.  Perhaps what we seek is here after all.”

I looked a question at her.

“Yes, it is human blood.”

Human blood, rich and salty-sweet, filling the air.  All it needed was lyrium and a handful of demons to push me back to Kinloch.   _ No.   _ “Let’s find Genitivi and the Temple, and be done with this place.”  Temple…I took us to their Chantry.  After all, the Chantry here was different.  Was it any less corrupt and debauched?

Yes.  This Chantry didn’t believe in branding its mages or forbidding entire types of magic.  That was evident enough from the altar before.

Unfortunately, it had other issues including the immediate attacks by villagers not realizing  _ we  _ weren’t the idiots of the rest of the South.  They wanted to sacrifice people?  Fine, so long as I wasn’t among them.  The wider Chantry did that all the time under the guises of Exalted Marches or hunting ‘malificar.’  Those in the Chantry building were no different.  Isolationist to the point of murder.  Perhaps Genitivi had been right.  Perhaps these people had already killed him.  So long as I could find the Ashes, why would I care about a Chantry dog?

Once the ‘Revered Father’ was dead, it was simple enough to find the hidden alcove.  A child could have – the Chantry had extended another thirty feet that direction when we looked at it from the outside.  There was even a window.  Within was Brother Genitivi, the Chantry scholar, with broken legs.

No, he couldn’t come with.

“Ch…Denise, why not?  It is his discovery, to bring this to the Chantry!”

I shook my head.  What did I care about the Chantry?  Why should  _ she,  _ when it had worked so hard to clip her wings?  I couldn’t break  _ her  _ heart, though.  Instead I searched for reasons she could accept.  “Leliana, he is injured.  If we’ve faced these here, what other risks are there?  He can return some other time.”  I looked back at the corpses.  “Especially with what they used here, are you sure you want to risk his mind?”

“Blood magic?”  Leliana was surprised. 

“I can recognize it.  The altar, and now here at the heart of the Chantry.”  I chose not to bring up why.  She would know, even if the broken man we talked over didn’t.  I hushed him absently.

Her eyes softened, but she still had a frown.  “It must be a cult that is here.  The Revered Father and now this?  No Chantry would use forbidden magic.”

I bit my lip.   _ Oh love – what do you think phylacteries are?  Have you forgotten, or blocked out the darkness so your light can shine?  The Chantry will use whatever it wishes, and call it ‘forbidden’ only to others.   _ “We’ll see.  This is the oldest and least disturbed place of Andraste worshippers.  Who knows what traditions haven’t been hidden here?”

“No.  I will not believe it. But…perhaps you are right, and it is safer for Brother Genitivi to return to Denerim.”

She gave in.   _ Leliana, my love, I will make it up to you.  But it is better this way.   _ I had the suspicion she would not like what we saw inside the Temple any better.

**

The Temple of Sacred Ashes was real.  Whether the Ashes were was still an open question, but the Temple existed.  Cultists from Haven…and wraiths trapped by magic and blood.  Was I the only one who wasn’t surprised?  No.  Sten was not, even freed of the weight of blood submission.  He knew his place and now had things to fight.  Once he had battle, he settled into  _ his  _ role.

Within the caves were more, led by a man who talked rather than simply attacked.  He asked a favor.  To ‘free the risen Andraste.’   I didn’t roll my eyes, not in the face of heavily-armored madness; besides, he offered knowledge.  He could further unlock the powers of blood and not just for a mage.  The forbidden knowledge the Chantry tried to suppress, and this man, living in the Temple, offered it.  Just to defile ashes of a woman long-dead, a woman responsible for so much harm to innocent children? 

“I will do it.”  I took the vial, smiling.  I didn’t care his mind was gone: he was not possessed, and he had knowledge that could help against the Blight.  The only reason I was in this forsaken ruin at the top of a mountain was to build up the power I needed against the Blight.  Let him soak in his madness.   _ I  _ would never return here.

The final path was guarded by some sort of spirit.  Whatever it was, it could see beneath the skin of Denise Amell – or not.  Jowan, the ‘mage you betrayed.  Whose friendship you betrayed.’

Jowan, the idiot.  “No, I don’t regret it.”  He was an idiot and a coward – and his actions since Denise accidentally freed him from the punishment he brought down on himself showed why some mages shouldn’t be taught.  At least he would no longer make those mistakes, not unless he could from the other side of the Veil.

The spirit attempted the same to the others.  Morrigan had nothing to do with it, nor Sten.  But Leliana...the thing asked/claimed that Leliana had invented her reasons, the basis of her faith.  I was shocked.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have been.  The Chantry Leliana professed to believe was not the Chantry of the real world.  It was simpler.  Brighter.  Pure and good - the same nonsense Alistair had believed about the Wardens.  Love had let me push her to realize she was more than that faith, but love had also kept me from tearing that faith back to the ground.  She didn’t want to believe the truth, and I hadn’t tried to force her.

I hadn’t been cold-hearted enough to make her.

“Leliana.  Come.  It’s a spirit reflecting doubt, nothing more.”

Another spirit wore Jowan’s face and had the gall to ‘apologize’ to me.  It did not matter, no more than the shades of ourselves we needed to fight.  The riddles?  What matter.  The spirits bound to this place attacked when I spat in their faces, and the next door opened.

Her voice sounded – the first real thing since we’d entered behind the ‘Guardian.’  “My love…”

I ached at her hesitation.  “Whatever this is, it is not the Chantry you believe in.”  It was the Chantry of reality, the Chantry steeped in power and fanaticism, not her dream of a Chantry of peace and love.  That was all I needed to see.  The Chantry from its start was that.  Fanaticism.  Was Andraste?  It didn’t matter.  “The past won’t give you what you’re looking for, love.”  Even now I tried to be gentle with her.  It was her blind spot, and one I’d prayed she’d overcome.  “If you want the Chantry to be otherwise, you have to force that change.  Look at what it’s done to mages – and what it did here.  They went straight to blood sacrifice and death, just to ‘protect’ the ashes of a dead woman.”

Finally, we reached the end.  A line of fire – what was pain, to accomplish what we needed?  I ignored the altar and simply walked through.

Unlike the others, I had the strength of knowing my own power, the strength of Sten to draw on as the agony crisped my flesh…and I was past the last barrier.

“How dare you!”  The spirit had appeared again.  This time it attacked.  One more demon gone – with any luck, it was the last of them.  The Veil didn’t feel torn here.

I turned back to the altar, to the statue…to the urn.  There was power here.  Perhaps it could do what Alistair claimed.

Kolgrim had said, ‘take what you need.’  I did.  I took far more than just a pinch, just in case.  There was no ‘guardian’ to protest.  Sten would not, nor Morrigan…and Leliana was praying.   _ Oh, love, if only I could believe.  But I know better.  _

Then I poured the vial of blood into the urn.

_ Anything for the Blight. _

If only…it wasn’t the Blight that led me to this.  These were too powerful for a Chantry already bloated with corruption and self-righteousness.  To have the power to heal anything?  No.  To have this center of worship?  No.  Charnia rebelled through Denise’s skin.  There was no harm in leaving the Temple to those we hadn’t already killed and their tame dragon.

Leliana turned, horrified.  My love, my bright spot of beauty and fire…and then tears in her eyes, she drew her bow.  “Leliana!  No!”  

“You...you...this wasn’t necessary!”  The steel blade facing me trembled as I called magic to my hand.  There was agony enough, but I couldn’t use blood magic.  Not on her.   _ Never  _ on her.  We stared at each other.  She was everything to me.  Everything except for my oath.  She was the reason I lived.  I held her eyes as fletching kissed her ear...as Sten cut her down from behind.  Then I closed mine as the last light died, leaving only corruption and duty. 

_ The ashes! _

My eyes flew open again.  I took out a small pinch, sprinkled them on her form.  Surely, I could find the words and convince her.  She’d smile up at me, we’d find a way through.  We had with everything else.  I could atone. 

Nothing.

_ Anything for the Blight – Maker damn you to the Void, damn you to the suffering you have left for us.  I will keep my vow, and destroy your last act on a world that deserved better.  If this is atonement, I will destroy your Chantry, the one that betrayed both of us, before I fall shrieking into the Abyss. _

Of course there was nothing.  Leliana didn’t believe in Andraste or the Chantry.  She’d believed in what they claimed they were.   _ Oh my love.   _ Charnia guttered and died with the woman who’d saved her.

Morrigan lifted me to my feet as I pressed one final kiss against her lips, warm and wet with tears.  I turned.  “Let’s go.”  I led the way back to Kolgrim, leaving the last shreds of my heart behind.  It would stay in her hands, growing cold behind me.  I should have left Charnia in Kinloch.  I had been a fool.  Such a damned fool.

I learned from Kolgrim and left him to the blood-soaked madness of his dragon and ruined temple.  The Ashes, the damned Ashes, had better work.  I  _ would  _ have Redcliffe’s army, one way or another.  Now, I had all the agony I would ever need.


	9. And Then, The Fall

(Redcliffe)

Andraste and the Maker cared more for another blood-sucking, self-righteous noble than a woman who was too good for the reality of the world they’d left.  The Ashes that failed Leliana in the Temple worked on the Arl.

He wanted Alistair on the throne – I managed not to laugh.   _ Alistiar?   _ The man who’d had trouble choosing his own socks the majority of the Blight, despite only having two pairs?  He didn’t want it.  Of course he didn’t, why would he?  He’d have to make hard decisions.   _ Any  _ decisions.  Finally, the decision was made to call a Landsmeet and force Loghain to face us.   _ Anything against the Blight.   _ “Let’s go.”

**

Alistair tried to speak to me on the way.  “Leliana?  She didn’t come back.”

It took everything I had not to boil him from the inside out.   _ Anything against the Blight.   _ He still had his use.  “She fell.  At the Temple.”

“Oh.”  He tried to reach out to me, for the first time.  “At least she’s found her rest with Andraste herself.”  He flinched away when he saw my eyes.  “I’ll just leave you be, then.  That’s probably better.”

**

(Denerim)

The Queen had been ‘captured’ by Arl Howe and his men?  I didn’t believe it any more than Arl Eamon, but he had a point.  Getting her favor would only help, even if it was such a transparent ploy.  The Arl’s son, Kendall?  He promised support, too.  The Warden Riordan – he believed what he heard.  Any description of  Denise would also fit me.  So the trap to get the Wardens to prove their loyalty to the Queen had value against the Blight after all.  He may only be one more Warden and weak from torture, but there was strength within him.  The Taint was strong, but he still moved full of will and determination.

Riordan survived, making his way to Eamon’s estate.  Howe died, as did his guards, as did Ser Cauthrien when she attempted to take me prisoner.   _ Anything against the Blight.   _ If I had already been forced to sacrifice my name and my love, why would I hesitate to sacrifice anything else?

I promised my support to Anora.  It was her, the paranoid Loghain, or the dangerously idealistic Alistair.  Loghain had been trying to kill us all along rather than accepting he’d failed.  He must have gone mad, the man who corrupted Uldred and shattered the hopes his pupil and lover Charnia had once held so long ago.  Before she died to Denise Amell.  Could I still remember my own skin?  I flinched at the memory of sunset hair, luscious lips, a musical lilting voice…the one who’d supported atonement.  The one who my vow to Denise Amell had left bleeding and cold in a ruined temple.

I no longer wanted to remember.

**

There was trouble - elves in their cage.  I ignored Alistair.  “Sten.”  My voice was flat.  “Morrigan.”  Who else?  The drunk, the dog, or the assassin?  Assassins were useful.  “Zevran.”  He was also an elf.  Maybe that would help.

It didn’t - the elves were wallowing in the mud and filth of their home, caged by their own ineptitude and pride.  Useless.  I ignored the blind, groping Templar and gave the blood-soaked building a wide berth.  I could feel the hungry edges of the Fade.  Whatever happened there was nothing I cared to deal with and probably didn’t need to.

The  _ mages,  _ I did need to deal with.  Very well, then.  I could creep around, or take the quicker route.  My patience was gone.  These were no healers.  I couldn’t taste healing in their gifts.  I snorted and attacked.

They’d taken over a sprawling set of buildings.  Tevinters.  Blood mages.   _ Free.   _ Oh.  That was how and why they were here - Loghain had sold the elves to them for their gold.  That was stupid, but Loghain had proven his mind went with his former king.  They died easily, not knowing how to deal with an unexpected blood mage backed by a Qunari.  The last was stronger, backed by his cage of elves.  He wasn’t strong enough.

“I surrender.”  The gasps were msic.  “But I have a bargain.  You have...skills.  Let me leave with my slaves.”

I laughed coldly.  “Why?  I’m no fool.”

“I’ll give you what you need against Loghain.”

This time it was Zevran who spoke.  It was out of turn, but supported me.  I let it slide.  “Oh?  We already have signed proof under his hand.  You bargain without coin.”

“Fine.  I’ll use them.  Magic - let their sacrifice make you stronger, more capable, whatever you wish.”

Zevran tensed, but he’d already killed his own lover and friend.  Where else could  _ he  _ go?  It would mean there were no witnesses to what these slavers had done...but did I need witnesses if they were elves that wouldn’t be listened to and I had the agreements?  “That and whatever other papers you have.”

“Warden, I think…”

Zevran silenced himself at a glance.

_ Anything against the Blight.   _ That meant surviving to take down Urthemiel.   _ Anything.   _

**

At the Landsmeet, Loghain was shocked when even his daughter turned against him.  “Will you fight me yourself, Warden?”

“Zevran.”  The irony didn’t escape either of us, and he smiled sharply.  The Crows hadn’t managed to reclaim him over my corpse…his loyalty was well-bought.

Riordan called out before the assassin could strike his final blow.  What?  The Warden wanted to recruit a paranoid, broken former soldier?   _ Anything against the Blight… _ and it was possible that by doing so we’d have one more thing to throw against the Darkspawn.  Besides, I had seen his eyes, as he was falling, and as he looked at the Queen.  A flicker of Charnia crept up before I could smother it.  Bright blue eyes under flaming hair taunted me.  But for  _ her  _ memory, I would give Loghain a chance to atone.  May he writhe, screaming in suffering, watching everything he loved vanish.  Just as I had.

Then I had to stand in shock as Alistair repudiated the Wardens.  For a moment I felt fear trickle through…would he expose me?  Would everything I had done have been in vain?

No.  He did not go so far.  He  _ did  _ however see that flash…and my determination.  There was only one way he was safe from me, I’m sure he realized it.  He claimed the Throne.  And with the knowledge of Denise Amell in both our eyes, the Bastard King knew I couldn’t protest.

Well played, Alistair.  He  _ had _ listened.


	10. After Death - An Epilogue

Leliana glanced at the shrine, then back to the Inquisitor who’s innocent questions had started everything.  “There is not much to say.  Warden-Commander Denise Amell was loved – and feared.  For good reason.  She used any tactics against the Blight.  She burned half of Denerim to the ground in the battle against Urthemiel, where Loghain lost his life in the final battle.  After, she vanished into stories and legends.”

The Inquisitor asked yet another question.   _ This  _ one would always want more.  “And the rumors that the two of you were…?”

Leliana remembered.   _ Soft brown eyes under golden hair, hair she loved to run her fingers through.  The tears and the nightmares, and the desperate attempt to atone, no matter what it cost.  No matter who it cost.  Horror and determination as the sword drove through her body, and the pain that drove away all thought and breath. _  Even after, she’d never asked the broken woman she’d finally found why.  Leliana already knew.

The determined but faithful Denise Amell that Leliana had only started to befriend would have never intended what happened.  ‘Anything against the Blight’ wasn’t an order, it was a way to persuade  _ Alistair  _ in the last moments she had – a way that worked, but at what cost?  Her love had ‘atoned’ by diving further into blood magic, sacrificing her humanity, countless innocents, even  _ her  _ own body and the hope of Andraste’s blessing discovered for all Thedas once more.  Discovered and destroyed, here.  Perhaps it was fitting that here is where the Chantry itself was shaken to its core.

Leliana sighed, then remembered the Inquisitor’s curious face still looking at her.  “No, I was not the lover of Warden-Commander Denise Amell.”

“Would she help?  Can you reach her?”

Leliana closed her eyes.  “Inquisitor, you do not want that sort of help.  You cannot understand the cost we paid during the Fifth Blight.”

Charnia had been right.  The Chantry Leliana loved and believed in didn’t exist.  Not yet.  But this Inquisitor could make it happen.  And  _ she  _ was a candidate for Divine.  After so long, perhaps the Inquisitor’s idealism could re-spark her own.

“Just remember, Inquisitor.  Sometimes ‘whatever is necessary’ leads to very dark places.  I have seen them.  Andraste guide your heart to love, no matter what else comes.”

_ After,  _ Leliana promised herself.  They could go back to the seaside after, and both find healing.

One of her messengers approached.  “Nightengale?  There’s a mage to see you.”

The spymaster kept her face composed.  “And duty calls us back, Inquisitor.  Unless there was anything else?”  The youngling left – it was painful, how much sheer  _ wanting  _ their ‘Herald’ had. 

There was so much she’d never tell the Inquisitor.  Some things were better left unspoken, like the chasm of dangerous truths she and Charnia had never spoken of.  The truth of Denise Amell’s words being only one of them…and the question of whether Charnia herself would have actually killed her.  Or whether she could have loosed her own arrow, in the Temple that had finally been destroyed, the Divine with it.  Perhaps it was better not to know, and to just…believe. 

Surely, everything had a purpose.  Surely, there was a reason.  Perhaps it was the only way.  Perhaps the Inquisitor would…but she turned away from that thought as a dark blonde woman stepped out from the shadows, and turned toward her lover with a bittersweet smile.


End file.
